


Ruby Red

by Lilith_Child



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1960s, Angels, Bodysharing, Does Anyone Actually Read Original Works?, Drug Use, F/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4174452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith_Child/pseuds/Lilith_Child
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The place: San Francisco. The era: the late nineteen-sixties. The person: Michael Russell. The problem: the spree of recent murders in the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruby Red

**Author's Note:**

> I do not have a beta, all mistakes are mine.

Currently, Michael (not Mike, not Mickey, and never, ever, ever Mikey, just plain Michael) was laying on the faded, flowery couch in his girlfriend’s (a loose term, at best. He didn’t quite know what they were, if anything) living room. The apartment was tiny, but that didn’t matter to him. Size was no object in this mission. Destiny, a flower child if he ever met one, was sprawled out next to him, her limbs loose and limp.

She giggled at something he couldn’t see, and he took another drag from the cigarette in his left hand. He’d never used acid before, himself. He couldn’t see the appeal. He’d been high enough in his life, already. Maybe not on the drugs that the humans used now, but a high that drove him mad and left him wanting more.

The therapist that his brother had made him see would have something to say about that. Well, he would, if Michael hadn’t killed him in cold blood a while back. The man had sinned, and he had not repented. Not that it would matter if he had, indeed, repented, because he had not felt any real guilt, and thus, was not sorry. Either way, he had to die.

Destiny - and what a fitting name that was for her, a small, insignificant human being - has ingested the last of her drugs, now, and she tugs him off the couch. He rolls with her, coiled energy and power infused in every part of his body. (Like a snake, he thinks, and he chuckles at the thought, though it comes out more bitter and a little sadder than he meant it to.)

—

Destiny falls asleep, eventually. Her head is pillowed on Michael’s chest, and when he knows that she is deep enough in sleep that she will not wake when he moves, he strikes. He does not move quickly, instead collecting the necessary mindset to serve justice from the scattered corners of his mind.

When he is calm enough - removed from her enough - he touches her. He places one hand on her forehead, and the other on her chest. The power gathers beneath his fingertips with a thought, and then he is the Angel of Justice, a Warrior of God. He is no longer Michael Russell, he is Gabriel, and he whole again.

Gabriel - for he is Gabriel now, almost certainly - is not cruel, however. Destiny does not wake, nor does she feel any pain.

She dies slowly, though. Gabriel makes sure of that. The power flowing through him, the sense of wholeness, of righteousness, of God’s will, is too tantalizing to let go of. He is not ready to let go of himself, not just yet. 

Eventually, though, Destiny is most certainly dead, and her corpse starts to smoke beneath his hands. Reluctantly, Gabriel takes his hands away. He moves slowly, but just as quickly as she had died, Michael is back in Gabriel’s place. It is a slippery transition, like always, and Michael can never pinpoint the exact point when he becomes alone again.

He knows the emptiness inside of him that fills only for a short while after each murder, though. He knows the exact moment when it returns, and he figures that it is the point where he slips back from Gabriel, into himself. It happens when he looses his connection to his family - well, what remains of it, anyway. At that moment, he is no longer an angel, but rather simply a human. A powerful one, but a human nonetheless. 

—

Michael leaves Destiny’s apartment unnoticed. By now, the sun is starting to peek over the horizon, bathing the sky in a blood-red glow. He smiles. It seems fitting, this sky.

He takes it as a sign.

As he walks through the streets of San Francisco, Michael spots a teenage boy exit a small shop. He has told a lie recently, Michael can tell. The smell of it clings to him like a cloak. Michael starts to whistle as he approaches the boy.

Over the next few weeks - months, maybe - he will gain the boy’s trust, and then he will deliver justice. His sin may have been small, after all, but a sin was still a sin. Besides, every body left smoking was another step to Raphael. Soon, he will have his family together again.

And if the world happens to burn in the process, well, that’s not his fault, is it? The humans were the ones who couldn’t stop sinning. Michael was simply the sword, after all. In the back of his mind, Gabriel hums in agreement, and Michael feels a tremble of excitement run down his spine. Don’t worry, he thinks. Soon enough, we’ll all be here.

With Michael’s face, Gabriel smiles, and it is then that Michael feels the first flicker of fear.


End file.
